Fred Sands, president of Fred Sands Realtors, wants to take advantage of the continued migration of Los Angeles County residents into Ventura County. His company's recent acquisition of Brown-Realtors, the residential arm of Joe Brown Realty Co. of Westlake, and an agreement to convert Camarillo's Mason-Churchill Realty Inc. into a Fred Sands franchise on Dec. 1, signifies the beginning of his planned expansion into Ventura County. "In recent years the migration has been accelerating.

Fred Sands, whose name once was posted on for-sale signs on houses all over Los Angeles' affluent Westside, quit selling homes more than a decade ago. But he has quietly built another real estate empire. The striving son of a New York cabby and small-business man, Sands built the largest independent residential real estate brokerage in California with 65 offices and 4,000 employees. Fred Sands Realtors and affiliated companies generated $9.4 billion a year in sales when he sold it in late 2000.

Fred Sands will be honored as 1985 Realtor of the Year at the Beverly Hills Board of Realtors' annual installation banquet Friday at the Beverly Hilton. Sands is also outgoing president of the board. He is being succeeded by Wilma Sullivan. George Konheim will receive the 1985 Citizen of the Year award, and Bob Dalton will be named 1985 Realtor-Associate of the Year. Konheim, president of Buckeye Construction Co., is being recognized for "countless hours to a variety of issues."

Real estate businessman Fred Sands has purchased a newly built beach home in Malibu for close to its asking price of $14.7 million. The sellers are Tom Mendoza, vice chairman of NetApp, and his wife, Kathy, who has served as sales director and an operations director at the data management firm. Kathy Mendoza spent three years working on the house, bringing in roof tiles from an Italian convent and importing the teak windows from Italy. Her current project is a castle restoration in Crete.

The family of a Northridge earthquake victim, who was killed when his hillside home collapsed, filed suit Thursday against Fred Sands Realtors and two of its agents, alleging they withheld information questioning the house's stability that had already scared away another buyer.

In reading "The Westside Real Estate Wars," I felt that a glaring omission was the concern for the buying and selling public. People rely on real estate agents to handle one of the most important financial decisions in their life. This places a tremendous responsibility upon the agent. Agents or companies that do not place a great emphasis on caring for their clients will not succeed in the long run. I would like to have seen less emphasis on greed and more information on today's professional salespeople, who work long hours but who derive a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that they are serving the public well.

Your article about Fred Sands courting Asian buyers makes me want to throw up. When is our government going to put a stop to foreigners buying all our real estate? How are our kids ever going to be able to afford a house? In other countries I've visited, including Mexico, you must be a citizen to buy property. Wake up lawmakers, before it's too late. C. CARGILL Garden Grove

The Woodlake Inn, 500 Leisure Lane, Sacramento, has been purchased for $6.8 million by an investment group headed by Los Angeles real estate broker Fred Sands. The 325-room hotel with banquet facilities for 1,000, situated on a three-acre lake, was last sold, in May, 1983, for $13 million. It has suffered from years of neglect, Sands said, and the new owners plan a $5-million remodeling, redecorating and refurbishing program.

The Museum of Contemporary Art has elected three new trustees: writer-producer Darren Star, whose credits include "Sex and the City," "Melrose Place" and "Beverly Hills, 90210"; Carolyn Clark Powers, who also is on the collectors' committee at the L.A. County Museum of Art; and Marc I. Stern, an investment executive who chairs Los Angeles Opera and is a board member of the Music Center, California Science Center and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts...

Investor Fred Sands, who once ran one of the country's largest residential sales brokerages, is adding to his growing commercial real estate portfolio by buying the large SouthBay Pavilion shopping center in Carson. In a sign of how much real estate values have declined since the recession began, Sands' company Vintage Capital Group is expected to complete its purchase of the mall near the 405 Freeway today for $50 million. That's well below the combined $34.

The Museum of Contemporary Art has elected three new trustees: writer-producer Darren Star, whose credits include "Sex and the City," "Melrose Place" and "Beverly Hills, 90210"; Carolyn Clark Powers, who also is on the collectors' committee at the L.A. County Museum of Art; and Marc I. Stern, an investment executive who chairs Los Angeles Opera and is a board member of the Music Center, California Science Center and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts...

The gig: For decades, Fred Sands' name was ubiquitous on Fred Sands Realtors signs throughout California. The company merged with Coldwell Banker in 2000 in a nine-figure deal. Sands is now chairman of Vintage Capital Group, where he specializes in turning around distressed companies and shopping centers. In the last 12 months, Vintage has picked up 1.6 million square feet of retail space and has brought its shopping center occupancy up to 95%, Sands said.

Southern California's No. 1 and No. 2 real estate brokerages announced Friday that they are joining forces, creating a real estate behemoth with 113 offices and 5,700 agents working in communities from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and Fred Sands said they have completed the deal and that Sands' operations, except for 40 franchise offices, will move entirely under Coldwell Banker's roof.

If there's any doubt that Southern California's housing market is hot, ask Jeff Stokes, a speculator who just placed his biggest bet yet. Stokes is a Pasadena real estate agent who for years has made money buying and fixing up old homes for profit, except when the market bottomed out earlier this decade and he lost his shirt. Now, he is building a home high in the Laguna Beach hills that he hopes to sell for $1.25 million when he finishes.

Fred Sands Realtors on Wednesday said it will drop out of the commercial real estate business by merging its Sands Commercial unit into the brokerage division of Charles Dunn Co. Inc. The value of the deal was not disclosed. Founder and company President Fred Sands said the move will allow him to focus on his larger and better known Brentwood-based residential brokerage business, which includes more than 50 offices and about 1,500 agents statewide.

On the front page of The Times Westside Classified Ads (Sunday, June 24) is a photo of Ronald Reagan and realtor Fred Sands, taken at a dinner honoring Sands as one of the top 25 "CEOs of the Decade," where Reagan was the keynote speaker. Which brought to mind a speech given by Reagan in Japan some months back, for which he was given $2 million. How much did Reagan get this time for allowing (assuming that he did) the photo to appear on a full-page commercial? Another $2 million? S. T COHEN Los Angeles

Fred Sands, the Santa Monica real estate broker who bought KBLA-AM last year and struggled to introduce an all-business news format, has thrown in the towel and signed a tentative agreement to lease the station to Korean-language programmers. Previously, Sands had let go more than half of his local staff, but insisted only a few weeks ago that he intended to stick with the all-business format by relying on Colorado Springs-based Business Radio Network.

Fred Sands, president of Fred Sands Realtors, wants to take advantage of the continued migration of Los Angeles County residents into Ventura County. His company's recent acquisition of Brown-Realtors, the residential arm of Joe Brown Realty Co. of Westlake, and an agreement to convert Camarillo's Mason-Churchill Realty Inc. into a Fred Sands franchise on Dec. 1, signifies the beginning of his planned expansion into Ventura County. "In recent years the migration has been accelerating.

The family of a Northridge earthquake victim, who was killed when his hillside home collapsed, filed suit Thursday against Fred Sands Realtors and two of its agents, alleging they withheld information questioning the house's stability that had already scared away another buyer.